The Magic Mountain

his head on one side, the eyes full of thought, yet fixed and dreamy too

firmly rooted in life

but he started up again, remembering that in that bed, the day before yesterday, someone had died. “That wasn’t the first time either,” he said to himself, as though the thought were reassuring. “It is a regular death-­bed, a common death-­bed

come fetch you to breakfast

smoking a large, mild cigarette the while

Down below, one goes through so many changes, and makes so much progress, in a single year of life. And I have to stagnate up here—­yes, just stagnate like a filthy puddle; it isn’t too crass a comparison.”

His words fell over each other

“Fast and slow, as you take it,” answered Joachim. “It doesn’t do at all, I tell you. You can’t call it time—­and you can’t call it living either!” he said with a shake of the head, and fell to his glass again.

But he always ate a good deal, out of pure self-­respect, even when he was not hungry

It was said that she had entered her first tuberculosis sanatorium as a young girl, and had never lived in the world since